CUBA | Sunday, 13 January 2013 | Views [394] | View Smaller Image
Since the U.S. economic freeze was established in Cuba, the “good times” of the 1930’s and 40’s finished and an age of scarcity began, not only in food but in clothing and industrial machinery parts. There’s a say in the city of Matanzas which describes how the Cuban make the best use of every material: “If you’re willing to throw away something… don’t do it and give it to a Cuban”. “The King of coconut” (el Rey del Coco), located in the small local market of Matanzas, extracts the coconut pulp with the aid of a handmade piece of machinery: a pierced bucket, an electric bobbin connected to a screw helix for the coconut scraping, all made by himself out from his engineering instinct. There’s no such thing as waste in the island, everything is valuable and essential.
